Shale gas drinking water pollution proven

The US Environmental Protection Agency has found petroleum and synthetic chemicals residues in drinking water in a shale gas area for the first time.

Ellen Kongsnes

Publisert:28.sep. 2012 13:00Oppdatert:28.sep. 2012 13:00

Fracking involves pumping water and chemicals into a reservoir to break up shale rock layers and release the gas trapped there.

EPA
officials say new
groundwater tests in Pavillion, Wyoming, show chemicals in the water that
can be linked to oil companies’ shale
gas operations, termed "fracking,” writes Norwegian business daily Dagens
Næringsliv (DN).

Fracking involves pumping water and chemicals into a reservoir to break
up shale rock
layers and release the gas trapped there.

Methane, ethane, propane, diesel oil

Aftenbladet
has previously visited another shale gas area The
Marcellus Shale located in the US’ northeastern part, where Statoil and other companies operate.

Statoil has no business
in Wyoming where the polluted groundwater has now been discovered,
but does have shale gas operations in
Texas, North Dakota,
and Montana.

Les også

Norway-based Statoil is expanding internationally and into so-called unconventional resources as output from aging fields off its home country’s coast declines.

The
EPA tests have identified methane, ethane, propane, diesel oil components and phenol, amongst other things.
These findings indicate that both
gas and the synthetic chemicals used in fracking have
contaminated the groundwater.